There has been a lot of commotion lately on Twitter and Facebook about the recent battle between The Weather Channel and Directv regarding the decision by the latter to drop the former. Of course this has TWC up in arms as it loses a significant portion of its customer base, so there is a lot on the table for the cable channel...much more than what Directv stands to lose.From a majority of what I have seen on the net Directv sits firmly in control of this battle in the court of public opinion. Why is this? Oh let us count the ways.....1. Programming: TWC has dedicated most of their programming to reality shows that have nothing to do with weather. "Prospectors", "Coast Guard Alaska", "Highway Through Hell" are just a few of the shows that are prominently promoted, but have no ties to actual weather. Most of these shows have already been done on Discovery such as "Gold Rush" and "Ice Road Truckers", not to mention the better quality.2. Inconsistency When Airing: If you like to use the guide from your cable or satellite provider, you will be disappointed to learn that it is useless when it comes to TWC. The guide shows Storm Riders at 8pm? Awesome, except when you tune it at 8pm they are showing temperatures in Florida.3. Poor Coverage of Live Events: There's a tornado warning in Central Texas and a possible EF-4 is on the ground! TWC will let us know what's going on right? Wrong. The wind in Chicago is blowing and it needs to be covered first.4. Naming of Winter Storms: Blatent promotional tool. Nobody likes this.5. The Torcon Index: Although Dr. Forbes does a nice job relaying what areas are most at risk, this is just a dumbed down version of the Storm Prediction Center outlook.6. The Internet: Weather can be retrieved from literally a million sources these days, and with the proliferation of smart phones that have real time radar and instant conditions as well as forecasts, the usefulness of TWC isn't near as much these days.Every once in a while I tune in to the channel, but mostly if there is an interesting weather related program. These days that is getting more rare, and unless someone brings it back to its core it may not be an option at all in the near future.